The New Legacy
by Ayaulym
Summary: Set 20 years after the events of Heroes of Olympus. Now that our beloved heroes have settled and moved on with their lives, what happens at Camp Half-Blood? This is a story following half-bloods trying to figure out their problems whilst fighting monsters and other demigods.


Ever since I came to Camp Half-Blood, I was surrounded by death.

I could feel the prickly, familiar feeling of understanding that someone has died in this place like sticky substance rolling down my back. I could almost see how every single one of the people that ever lived and died here were murdered or passed away. I could faintly hear the dying screams of children deserving of anything, but death.

No, I am not some ridiculous ghost whisperer like those you find in TV shows now days. I am simply a child of Hades, a child of death.

My name is June Fujishima and I can sense death within a mile radius.

No, not the actually death, Thanatos, but the death for people. I can hear their last breath, their last heart beat and I can sense their soul embarking on a journey to the Underworld, my father's realm.

I know, it all seems terribly depressing.

It is.

I do not know how or why this happens to me particularly, when it never happens to my half-siblings. Jasmina can shadow-travel, Henry can summon the skeleton warriors and Kieran can do both. While I… I can smell death.

And the most terrible thing is that if I can concentrate on it enough, I can feel the spirit of every single one of the people that ever died in this place, which is a lot, considering I live in a camp for half-bloods.

Half-bloods are children to gods and mortals, given the gift of agility and strength, but vulnerable because of their mortality. Monsters of Tartarus enjoy hunting down us half-bloods, because of our direct relation to the gods. They often do it to get back on our godly parents for some crap they did a thousand years ago by well… killing us mercilessly.

And Camp Half-Blood has been the place of those merciless murders for a quite long time.

But, usually, I can get away without noticing the death of it all, now that everything is peaceful in camp. However, today, was a day of yet another death.

I was walking from the shower stalls, on my way to the Hades cabin when I felt it. The slowing heartbeat in my ears, the pain in my abdomen and the tears welling up in my eyes. I could almost sense with my fingers the soul slipping away from the body.

I could see lightening marking across the sky in criss-crossy scars with the thunder rolling around in a terrifyingly fast manner. The raindrops fell on my skin, surrounding the entirety of camp in a shower of sorrow.

So, I did what the most sensible thing in this situation. I screamed.

The gut-wrenching, banshee-like scream that echoed across camp in a terrifyingly haunting manner. Roa, the daughter of Aphrodite that was next to me earlier, came up to me, her brown eyes wide and pouty pink lips open in shock.

"June?" she asked me. " Is this happening again? Who is it?"

I couldn't answer. My lungs seemed to refuse to work and my breath came short every time I tried to breathe. Everything around me became blurry, shadows dancing in my eyes and my skin prickling into goosebumps. I felt as if I was the one dying.

Soon, through my blurry vision, I could see campers gathering around me, their gazes frantic and their hands reaching towards me.

But, I all I ever wanted to was to escape this state, this feeling of being smothered, this shortage of breath. I tried standing up, but my legs refused to move, turning into stone and rooting me to the ground. I barely registered how much I was crying, tears streaming down my face.

" June!" I heard someone calling out, as if from above the water. "June, look at me!"

Dark brown eyes came into focus, looking terrified and saddened. I could finally make out the face behind the voice.

It was Dylan Kim , the Counselor of the Poseidon cabin and someone who I happened to have feelings for. He always had this worried expression, just like a child who couldn't understand a puzzle that baffled me, yet made me swoon at the same time.

But, today, this worried expression was addressed towards me and he stood so close to my face that I could smell sea salt on him, a smell that seemed to linger as much on the children of Poseidon as the deathly smell of vanilla lingered on the children of Hades.

" It's okay. You hear me? It's fine" he told me, holding my shoulders and staring me right in the eye. " Breathe, June, breathe"

Then, someone next to me started counting, asking me to take deep breaths in and out. I tried to follow their steps, clumsily counting numbers with my croaky voice.

Eventually, the shortage of breath subsided and I found an ability to speak again, although my throat still hurt from the shock that my body went in.

" W-who died?" I asked, stuttering at my own words. " Who is it?"

People looked around each other, looking unsure of what to say.

Now, I could clearly see my surroundings, including grassy hills of Camp Half-Bloods and the campers huddled around in a circle . They were mostly daughters of Aphrodite, who usually showered around that time, who all smelled strongly of floral, sweet shower gels that they used, their beautiful faces twisted in concern. I also saw Jasmina, my half-sister, and Lucia Velasquez, Counsellor of the Athena Cabin and the person who seemingly made me measure my breath. Then, there was Dylan, kneeling down in front of me his almond-shaped eyes narrowed and his lean, muscular body crouching over mine. His face was void of raindrops raindrops and his clothes seemed perfectly fry, which made me jealous only for a second. Over them all, loomed Polina Marks, the most talented daughter of Apollo, holding out to her hands like she was getting ready to heal me.

" It's… Shanice" said Jasmina, her lip wobbling slightly. " Her and other Hermes kids went to check on the monster lurking around there. It turned out to be a chimera sent by Echidna…"

Shanice Jones was a daughter of Hermes, a short, dark-skinned girl with a smile too huge for her face and hair done in the most beautiful braids I have ever seen. I would always see her hand in hand with Mia Cohen, the famous 'Electricity', who happened to be the child of Zeus. She, just like most of Hermes' kid, enjoyed chatting around and I would often catch her sending me a smile and saying 'hi', even though we didn't know each other.

Unfortunately, apart from that, I did not know anything else about Shanice, except for the fact that she's dead.

" I'm so sorry", I sobbed pathetically, grabbing my ridiculously long, black hair in fists. " It's just… her death was so... painful"

The campers around me galnced at each other again, not sure of what to do, until Dylan grabbed me by the shoulders and set me upright. He looked into my eyes again, his warm, chocolate eyes sending waves of sympathy.

" Let's go, alright? I think you need to warm up a little bit, standing in the rain doesn't really help right now", he smiled sadly, rubbing my shoulders.

I was suddenly aware of how the rain coated my entire face and how the material of the orange shirt clung awkwardly to my skin. It made me blush madly, which hopefully was covered up by the fact that it was raining.

I nodded frantically, blinking away the raindrops.

Dylan helped me pull myself up and it took me a moment to find that there was a gash on his arm, which was currently bleeding.

"You're bleeding" I pointed out, my eyes wide.

He simply shrugged, calling for Jasmina to help me into the Hades Cabin. Both of them helped me upright and took me right me into the cabin.

The atmosphere was no longer as dark as it used to be, without the greek fire and the walls painted into a more neutral beige, but the place still often felt cold. Kieran and Henry, my half-brothers, looked wide-eyed because of my appearance, but still seeming to understand the situation.

Jasmina nodded at them and they gave me a clean change of clothes and opened the screens for me to change. While inside, I replayed the entire situation in my head and felt the pain of Shanice's death burden on me again, as well as the fact that Dylan Kim was right in my cabin, concerned for my well-being. I was already expecting that by the time I came out, he would already be gone.

But, surprisingly, he wasn't. He was conversing with Kieran, which was awkward to say the least, since Kieran was obviously ignoring him by immersing himself into the latest "Vanity fair" issue (Kieran was a huge fan of all things fashion and always insisted on adding glitter on anything in our cabin). Hen Delyn saw me coming out from behind the screen, he immediately jumped up, eagerness and worry pooling in his brown eyes.

"June, you probably need tea or stuff like that…", he looked around our dark cabin. "Do you guys have tea or I dunno, warm milk?"

Henry, the saltiest of my siblings, gave a snort.

He was sitting in the yellow puffy chair (which I insisted on buying), his midnight black hair swept back and his black eyes boring into Dylan with infuriation clear in them. Which was kinda funny at the same time, considering he wore a Hello Kitty t-shirt on (his style was radical in all senses of the term, including the homewear).

" Do you think the children of the actual god of the underworld will have tea lying around?", Henry raised an eyebrow. " It's not like we hold 'Death 101' sessions here every Wednesday or some shit like that"

Dylan raised both his arms in defense, his grin apologetic.

" Well sorry for assuming that anyone _likes tea._ I forgot that children of the underworld are morally abided to not drink tea or something, geez" he said sarcastically.

I shook my head slightly, leaning on the wall to take several deep breaths. I was grateful that no one mentioned my odd behavior _or_ Shanice's death. Over time, my half-siblings and I had developing a mechanism of 'don't ask, don't tell', which was often useful and other times not.

" I believe we do have some hot chocolate though" I said, smiling ever so slightly. " Nico dropped it off last time he was here"

Nico di Angelo was one of our half-siblings, the most famous of all the Hades children. He was much older than us and was based in Maine, where he lived with his husband Will and their daughter, Mina. But, sometimes, he dropped by once in a while for things like Christmas or Dia de la Muerta, which was an important celebration to all the Hades kids out there.

Jasmina, who just came from behind the screens wearing her animal print pajamas (do not question my siblings' choice in clothing), soon joined in the conversation. Her shock of purple pixie hair was beginning to turn frizzy and her usual bold lipstick was absent from all the raining, which fazed me for a second.

" Why don't you go back to your cabin now, Little Row Boy? I mean, I'm pretty sure it is impossible for you to get wet, so no fear, is there?", she asked him, lying down onto her bed with a copy of another poem collection (Jasmina was a huge literary nerd, last year when I gave her a Shakespeare copy of "Macbeth" on her 16th birthday, I thought she was going to cry).

" I am not scared of the rain, I'm scared of Mia Cohen" he replied solemnly, lowering himself unto my bed.

Silence was the only response to his words as my siblings realized the clarity of his words. I, too, lowered myself in another puffy chair and looked down on my lap.

Mia Cohen, the Counsellor to the Zeus cabin and an absolute ace when it came to all things electric, had lost a girlfriend. And knowing Mia and her aggressive streak, that meant that Camp Half-Blood would have to suffer through one of the worst thunderstorms yet.

We, as children of the Big Three, understood very well what it meant to just… have no control over yourself whatsoever.

Once in awhile, a 'Big Three' kid would have a fit of some sort, which would either result in bolts of lightning, storms, violent tides, hurricanes of water or the living dead crawling across camp. The instances didn't happen very often, but when they did, it was most advisable for no one to approach the said kid unless you were Chiron or anyone close to them.

So, Dylan really had no choice but to stay with us.

" We'll, it'll be fun night in with you, Little Row Boy", cackled Jasmina, her black eyes shimmering with mischief.

I blushed.

What had we gotten ourselves into?


End file.
